But the bottom line is that before the bill's inevitable passage the NDP will do a little dance like this, and the LPC will do a little dance like that. In a sense the LPC's position is the more honest of the two. The NDP clearly sees some good in the bill, otherwise they would promise something beyond a mere tweaking once they got in power. But then why try to kill it now and have to start all over again to achieve an mostly identical result?

Saturday, February 21, 2015

Waiting for a bus that had got stuck behind a line of plows this afternoon, way out in Scarborough, I ran into a couple of Mormons who were using the occasion to proselytize at the TTC stop. "Have you ever had a chance to read The Book of Mormon?" one of them asked me. "I did,' I said. "I turned it down."

Friday, February 20, 2015

A bad Xmas season means more layoffs at, closures, bankruptcies, and etc. You notice the Harper gov. doesn't talk economics much anymore? You notice how they've switched to Muslim bashing and fear mongering? Look ye above for one of the reasons.

And on issues like this is where we start to miss the Sun News Network. If they'd been around, Brian Lilley would have led in a whole team (wearing Hazmat suits!) to search for the missing, like he did when CBC lost a chair in '011. And, shit, if it had been rumored that the underwear had fled to Budapest to join ISIS, SNN would have sent David Akin over to spy out the place for a couple of weeks, staying at fine hotels, eating street food in the markets. Because SNN did news, man, don't say otherwise. And when they did news they did it hard.

Wednesday, February 11, 2015

A number of stories have already appeared re the successful lawsuit launched by climate scientist (and now Green Party MLA) Andrew Weaver against writers at The National Post. Here's a pretty good one, and the decision in its entirety can be found here. I can't add much to what has already been said, but the case has a couple of interesting facets beyond what people have generally noted.

I publish a post which says:"John Doe is a murderer."I am soon approached by Mr. Doe's lawyers. But then Bob writes a post which says"BCL finally tells the truth about John Doe."Not having repeated any of the defamatory content, the SCC ruling lets Bob off Scot free. Now, you might argue that's fine. Bob doesn't control what's at the other end of the link. Maybe it's been changed in the meantime. Why should he be responsible? And etc.Okay, but lets assume that Bob knows exactly at the other end of the link and is in clearly endorsing the defamatory content. And lets assume that in context it is absolutely clear that Bob's intent is to ruin the reputation of John Doe, as much as mine was.The defamatory content was not repeated in his post, so he suffers no consequence. Period. End of story. Several justices dissented on this point, suggesting that context should be taken into consideration, and endorsing defamation should be considered defamation. The majority seems to have said NO.

If you read the original, there is some back and forth on this in the comments. After all, several judges in concurring opinions invoked the notion of "context". But these nuances didn't make the majority decision, and isn't that what the law becomes?

So, Crookes v. Newton is mentioned about a dozen times in the Weaver decision. In particular, the NP lawyers argue that "...republication cannot be a mere hyperlink as stated in Crookes. Thus, the “story tools” on the National Post website do not qualify as authorization. The evidence established these are merely permitted hyperlinks back to the original article." And while noting that there is room for "nuance" in deciding whether someone can be liable for hyperlinking Judge Burke seems to accept this reasoning. Or at least accepts that this is what the SCC decided:

[270] In Crookes at para. 20, the Supreme Court of Canada acknowledged the defence of innocent dissemination, which developed in an earlier era for secondary distributors such as booksellers, will likely come into play with secondary Internet publications. The Court recognized however that, on the Internet, courts must be careful to develop the law in a way that does not unduly stifle the free exchange of ideas. As such, in Crookes, the Court held hyperlinks are not publications.[271] The Supreme Court of Canada in Crookes concluded while the legislator has created a specific presumption a publication in respect of broadcast, it has not done so in respect hyperlinks and therefore the court should refrain from creating a new one: at para. 108.
So there you have it. For reasons given above, I think the SCC made a bad call in Crookes v. Newton. But under current Canadian law, you can link to defamatory material even where circumstances indicate that you are doing so out of evil intent.

As for Andrew, we met a few times on Coren's old show, and have had a few run-ins otherwise. He is not a homophobe. A pasty, pimple faced punk maybe. But not a homophobe. He may even, for all I know, be an avid cellist.

Friday, February 06, 2015

It's been awhile since Lorna Pardy has been in the news. Back in 2008, she was verbally assaulted by comedian Guy Earle at Zesty's Comedy Club in Vancouver. She took him to the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal, and won. At the time, some, Ezra Levant in particular, were pushing the notion that this case was about the exercise of free speech. It wasn't. It was more about a lowly restaurant functionary going off on a customer. In any event, Ezra said things. And Ms. Pardy commenced a civil action against him. However, the suit lay still-born for a number years until, in 2013, after the various appeals of the original wound up, Ms. Pardy served Ezra with a notice of civil claim. Ezra moved that the case be dismissed due to the long delay but, on January 29th of this year, the judge said no. So, throw another lawsuit on the pile; Ezra's going back to court. And when Ezra goes to court, Ezra tends to lose.